Spreading Your Enthusiasm for Charity and Philanthropy

Once you’ve made your financial gift to a charitable cause, decided to volunteer or become involved with an organisation in some other way, you’ll probably want to share your enthusiasm with others. Here are some tips for communicating with others about what you’ve done, are doing or plan to do charitably:

Create short, simple, basic sentences. Explain what you’re doing and why rather than reciting a long tale.

Use words like grow, flourish and advance to describe what the charity will be able to do with your additional support.

Avoid talking about distant goals that alienate the audience or hurt your credibility. Talk about things that are happening soon that seem tangible.

Keep the audience interested by explaining how they can help without always using yourself as an example.

Avoid metaphors, talk directly about the charity and what it’s doing. Don’t discuss the charity’s work in terms of ‘It’s like what this other charity does.’

Don’t use abbreviations that only someone in that area or familiar with that charity would know about. Spell things out, as not everyone knows what these abbreviations stand for and they can be intimidating to an audience that would otherwise be interested in the topic. For instance, if a charity works in the Democratic Republic of Congo, say that, as your audience may not know where ‘the DRC’ is located or what it is.